Blood moons, baristas and rebooting your world
The idea of “Reboot” came to me while I was on Samui island, relaxing in a private villa by the beach. It was the weekend after WIT 2014 had just ended and this was my annual retreat to unwind.We had just marked “Little Big 10”, the first WIT after the acquisition by Northstar Travel Media. [...]
The “reboot” of Alan Joyce and Qantas: How an Irish working class lad became high-flying executive
If ever there’s a reboot story, it is that of Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas, personally and how he led and engineered the biggest airline turnaround possibly in the history of aviation.During the CAPA Aviation Awards night in Helsinki, of which I was the emcee, Joyce picked up both the Airline Turnaro [...]
Letter to Jukka: The lost art of waiting and conversations
Finland’s always been on my list of places to visit. One main reason is that when I was about 10, I started a correspondence with a Finnish boy, which lasted a few years.Those were the days before you could just click and make a friend. I can’t quite recall how we met but I think it was from one [...]
Letter from Kalastajatorppa: An instant dose of fresh air and Finnish angst
You couldn’t ask for a bigger contrast – flying from the haze-filled sky of Singapore to the crisp clear sky of Helsinki. In 12 hours, I felt like I could breathe again.It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve had to breathe in the noxious smoke particles from the forest fires in Indonesia [...]
Letter from the Mekong: A more-than-virtual-reality adventure
So there we were, sitting back in the longtail boat, enjoying the cool breeze in our hair and preparing to enjoy the cruise on the Mekong.The camera equipment which would shoot the Virtual Reality footage had been set up – six GoPros mounted on a rig which Morris Sim (CEO of Brand Karma) had tied [...]
Letter from Kuching: Excuse me, do you want my hot spot?
I’ve just returned from Kuching where we ran a Digital Marketing Bootcamp for the travel trade. The objective was to basically arm industry players with information and knowledge of how to make their business, and their destination, easily discoverable in the digital world.If you’ve been to Kuch [...]
The making of Cempedak Island and the bamboo that went missing for a month
Writing about clicks all the time, it makes a nice change to write about bricks or, in this case, bamboo.Just caught up with Andrew Dixon, the former banker-turned-hotelier of Nikoi Island fame, who's right in the throes of building his latest resort, Cempedak, on an Indonesian island he bought more [...]
The value of authenticity in storytelling and travel
A little over a year ago, I went to Peru. On my list was a visit to Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake. Getting there involves a half-day-long drive from Cusco – made longer by drag in the dirt roads and the ocasional llama crossing.On the shores of the lake is the city of Puno, c [...]
Letter from Bangkok: Same, same but different
It seemed not much had changed in Bangkok. The day I arrived, it had been raining – which can only mean one thing. Bad traffic.After an hour into the ride from airport to hotel, I asked the driver how much longer we had and he said, “One more hour.”“What!” I exclaimed – a typical respo [...]
How to go beyond being a “digital vampire”: Take some tips from The Who’s Townshend
In his John Peel Lecture of 2011, Pete Townshend of The Who called iTunes a “digital vampire”, saying it was bleeding artists with its enormous 30% commission.He then went on to give some tips as to how iTunes could create a better world for all – unearth new, good music through editorial guid [...]
